The present invention relates to the field of microelectronics, and, more particularly, to a multi-component microelectronic system, such as a micro-electromechanical system (MEMS) or a multichip system in which two or more component parts of the system are electrically and/or mechanically interconnected.
In the production of complex micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) that include several mechanically and/or electrically interconnected subsystems, the greatest difficulties are encountered during the interfacing and connection of the various subsystems. For example, in hard-disk reading/writing units having micrometric actuation for the fine positioning of the reading/writing transducers (heads or sliders), it is necessary to interconnect the suspension, the micro-actuator, and the slider.
The slider is fixed to the rotor of the micro-actuator, and is usually glued to a support plate which in turn is anchored to the rotor. The slider is also soldered at several points to flexible mechanical connection elements or springs suspended above the rotor and connected in a cantilevered manner to the static part of the micro-actuator. The electrical terminals of the slider are soldered to further flexible electrical connection elements or springs also suspended above the rotor, and connected in a cantilevered manner to the static portion of the micro-actuator. There are at least four electrical terminals, two for reading and two for writing.
The soldering operations are generally performed by a ball bonding technique and are extremely delicate operations. Moreover, if the micro-actuator is found to be faulty during the subsequent functional testing stage, the entire micro-electromechanical system has to be rejected since the functioning components of the system cannot easily be disconnected for reuse.
Similar problems arise in multichip systems in which two or more chips, each incorporating a respective integrated circuit, have to be mechanically and electrically interconnected in predetermined regions to form a single microelectronic system. In this case also, in addition to the difficulty of the soldering operation, production output is greatly penalized by the fact that it is very difficult to disconnect faulty chips from functioning ones to be able to reuse the latter.
In view of the foregoing background, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method for the electrical and/or mechanical connection of component parts of a microelectronic system which overcomes the problems mentioned above.
According to the present invention, this object is achieved by a method for the electrical and/or mechanical interconnection of components of a microelectronic system, characterized in that it provides for the formation of at least one local Joule-effect micro-heater. The micro-heater is incorporated at a respective soldering point between a first component and a second component of the micro-electromechanical system. The method further includes providing electrical energy to the micro-heater to utilize the heat produced by the micro-heater by the Joule effect for the soldering of the first and second components at the soldering point.